Chuck vs the Just Deserts
by sharpasamarble
Summary: It's been over three years since Bryce sent Chuck the email, and Chuck is tired of it all. He's tired of two jobs, the lying to his family and friends, and the Buy More. He's even tired of Sarah and the cover. How quickly things can change. One-shot.
1. Not Worth Getting Out of Bed

_Ed. Note. Inspiration struck the other day, so I took a break from my other story and pounded this one out. It is a one-shot that does not fall into any of my other timelines._

_Standard disclaimers apply: I don't own 'Chuck'; it owns me._

Chuck found that he had trouble dragging himself out of bed lately. He forced himself to roll onto his back and open his bleary eyes, staring blankly at the ceiling.

It was coming up on eight years since he'd been unceremoniously kicked out of Stanford for a breach of student ethics he didn't commit. The majority of that time, he had worked at the local Buy More, the last two years as assistant manager.

He'd spent the first five years in a sort of daze. Betrayed by his best friend and believing that everything he had worked so hard to achieve was irreparably lost, he now realized he had spent those five years wallowing in self-pity. It was one of those revelations that was difficult to see until you removed from it … or were removed from it.

For Chuck, he had been removed from it the day his ex-best friend, Bryce Larkin, had sent him the email. He hadn't really realized anything had changed until Sarah Walker had approached him in the Buy More, using a not-really-broken cell phone as an excuse to introduce herself, and later to ask him for a date.

That date was when he realized how much things had changed. Bryce had sent him a database of government secrets that were now firmly implanted into his brain, which gave him two choices: cooperate with the CIA and the NSA, or be locked away, if not worse.

It had been nearly three years since then, three years of spending his days at the Buy More and his nights trying to support of Sarah Walker and NSA agent John Casey in a variety of missions. They had been largely successful in their missions, having largely defanged a subversive organization called Fulcrum along with ridding the metropolitan Los Angeles area of a number of nefarious characters, characters that likely would have remained at large without the efforts of Chuck and the two agents.

But the reality was that he was tired. He was tired of the eighty-plus-hour weeks. He was tired of lying to his friends and family about the inevitable times when duty called, pulling him away from them with no good explanation. He was tired of Ellie and his Stanford friends wondering why he continued to work at the Buy More.

He was even tired of maintaining the cover with Sarah.

Sarah obviously had feelings for Chuck that mirrored his feelings for her, but she remained insistent that their cover remain just that: a cover. Throughout it all, Chuck had made it clear that all she had to do was say the word, and he was ready for more. He wanted more. He needed more.

She had certainly had her share of slips over the past three years: the occasional passionate kiss when her will eroded, the infrequent moment where she questioned her own reasoning and allowed Chuck to see that she was weakening. But in the end, those slips simply made those moments all the more tantalizing before he had yet another realization that it was just a glimpse of something that could not be.

In the end, Sarah was determined to remain professional; it was an integral part of who she was. Chuck desperately wanted to respect that, but the consequence was that having her around all the time became a form of exquisite torture, stoking the fire of feelings destined to remain unfulfilled. That hardly was a recipe for healing his taxed mental state.

He looked over at the cold and empty sheets where she occasionally slept as part of their cover and sighed.

Once upon a time, Chuck had considered himself a strong person. The five years after Stanford disabused him of that notion. The infusion of the Intersect into his consciousness had initially been a blessing, helping him to rebuild his sense of confidence and replenish his mental strength.

However, he was only human; now he was just worn down by the long hours and the stress and the lies he needed to tell his friends and family.

His eyes focused on the plain white ceiling, idly wandering, looking for patterns in the drywall. Anything was preferable to looking over at the clock, knowing it would just tell him that he was running late.

_C'mon, Bartowski. Get out of bed_, he insisted to himself.

But, really, why did he bother getting out of bed in the morning?

* * *

The hot shower water ran over his body.

He went over today's schedule in his head. Eight hours at Buy More, followed by a mission briefing at Casey's and whatever surveillance was necessary that night. He needed to call Ellie to cancel dinner, again, and make sure Morgan knew he wouldn't be hanging around this evening. Not that Morgan ever really expected him to be hanging around any more.

He sighed, looking down at his wrinkling fingertips. Every day, he found himself lying in bed just a little bit longer, staying in the shower just a little bit longer, and driving to the Buy More just a little bit slower. At the end of it all, what was the point?

He was stuck under the CIA's thumb. Sure, he could run. He even started to put together a plan one time: he would drop the watch with the tracking chip into a FedEx package destined for some remote part of the country where it would take agents a while to track down. Maybe North Dakota or Minnesota.

He would park the Nerd Herder outside Morgan's apartment on one of the rare nights where they had no agency work, and then he would take Morgan's car and drive south into Mexico. He would be across the border inside three hours, likely before Sarah or Casey missed him. From there, he could catch a plane in Ensenada or catch a ship from one of the ports along the coast. With any luck, he'd be far enough ahead of Casey and Sarah that he would be long gone by the time they figured out where he had gone. If they figured it out.

In the end, though, his planning never got any further. He couldn't leave Ellie. He couldn't leave Morgan. And he couldn't leave Sarah.

Sarah had been too kind to him. While she never let their romantic feelings progress, she did nearly everything else she could along the way to make things easier for him. Whether it was defending a mistake he made on a mission or fighting to keep him from being extracted to a bunker, she had always been there for him. Fleeing would be a poor way of repaying her.

No, he was good and trapped, no matter which way he looked at it. That was part of what made it all so frustrating.

He turned off the tap with a sigh and reached for his towel.

Twenty minutes later, he was in his Buy More gear and heading out the front door. Casey sat on the edge of the fountain, reading the paper as he waited for Chuck so the two could ride into work together, as they had most days for the past three years.

Chuck was a good fifteen minutes late. He numbly braced himself for the inevitable lecture as Casey folded up his paper and stood up.

"Good morning," was all Casey said. The surprising part was that he actually seemed to mean it.

"Good morning to you, too," said Chuck. He studied Casey for a moment; the guy seemed almost … wistful. "What's with you today?"

Casey shrugged it off. "Nothing. Ready to go to work?"

Something was definitely weird about Casey, but for the life of him, Chuck couldn't figure out what it might be. "Sure," he said uncertainly.

The two walked in silence through one of the archways to where Chuck had parked the Nerd Herder.

Casey said, "You know, I was thinking about swinging by that bagel place on the way in and picking up a dozen for the gang."

"OK, that's it. Who are you and what have you done with Casey?" Chuck demanded. He half-expected Casey to reach down to his neck and pull off a rubber mask, revealing Bryce or Tommy or some other random Fulcrum agent who had no clue how the real Casey behaved.

That might have seemed less weird than seeing Casey act this way. He actually referred to the Buy More employees as "the gang"?

Casey shrugged. "Just in a good mood, I guess."

The odd thing was that his mood didn't really seem all that good. Chuck tried to figure it out as the pair hopped into the car. Checking his mirrors, Chuck eased the car into the street and headed for the bagel shop.


	2. One Strange Day

Work passed uneventfully that day.

It was a normal day at the Buy More. Everything seemed at its most basic. The normal number of customers passed through the store. The normal types of customer problems came into the Nerd Herd desk. Jeff and Lester and Big Mike and the rest of the Buy More crew all had their typical quirky moment or two.

Casey's unusual mood continued. He didn't conduct his job at his usual breakneck pace, instead actually taking time to stop and talk to people. He took the first coffee break Chuck could remember, hanging out in the break room.

The other Buy More employees were just as disconcerted at Casey's behavior as Chuck was. Jeff went so far as to ask for a dose of whatever upper Chuck had slipped into Casey's coffee.

Chuck kept his informal lunch appointment with Sarah. As usual, his heart leapt as he walked into the store, seeing her manning the counter, seemingly just waiting there to give him a smile. As always, he enjoyed every minute of lunch, up until the usual somewhat awkward goodbye. Neither of them could figure out how to completely hide how they felt about the other any more, and there was no longer anything that they could say to smooth it over.

It was truly an exquisite form of torture.

As he walked back across the parking lot, he wondered for the umpteenth time whether he should skip joining Sarah for lunch. And, for the umpteenth time, he dismissed the idea. The half hour he spent with her was really the only part of the day that gave him any kind of joy any more.

The afternoon passed blessedly quickly, but in the end, it didn't matter. The early evening briefing loomed in their future; it would soon be time to start his second shift.

Casey and Chuck drove back to the apartment complex; neither said much. He did catch Casey looking over at him for a long moment at one point, but chose to ignore it. He had given up trying to figure out Casey today.

Parking the Herder along the sidewalk, the two wandered up the path to the courtyard. Sarah stood there waiting for the pair.

"Agent Walker," Casey greeted her with a small smile.

"Agent Casey," Sarah returned with a larger grin.

"So, what's on tap for tonight?" Chuck asked. "Drug smuggler, weapon seller, information broker?"

"Not tonight," he replied. He turned back to Sarah. "You have full control of surveillance of the Intersect tonight?"

Sarah nodded.

"In that case, I'll be taking a well-deserved night off." To Chuck, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow morning at 9 am?"

Chuck was confused about what was happening; all he could do was nod.

"Good." Casey turned back to Sarah, and the two shared a long look. Then Casey turned and walked back towards the apartment parking lot, clearly planning on heading out somewhere.

Chuck directed a baffled look at Sarah. "What's going on? What about the briefing?" he asked.

For a moment, she looked uncertain of what she wanted to say. Finally, she answered, "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

A bit concerned, Chuck said, "Sure." He walked over to the apartment and unlocked the door, pushing the door open so the two could enter. Ellie and Devon had bought a small house closer to their hospital, so Chuck now had the apartment to himself. Luckily, given his Buy More wage, Ellie and Devon had decided to keep ownership of the apartment as an investment, taking only what Chuck while paying the rest of the mortgage.

_It must be nice to have money_, Chuck thought wistfully. He forced himself to focus on the present.

"What's going on?" Chuck asked. "Casey's been acting weird all day, and now…"

The emotion showing on Sarah's face stopped him. It was a strange mix of trepidation and anticipation and pain. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She looked down, playing with her fingers for a moment before answering. When she looked back at him, the only emotion on her face was need. "Do you trust me?" she asked.

"Of course," Chuck said. He thought that would have been clear by now. The two had worked together so often for so long, Chuck trusted Sarah with his life.

"No, Chuck, do you trust me? The type of trust where, no matter what happens, your faith in me won't be shaken?"

"Sarah, what's going on? You're starting to scare me."

"There's no need to be scared," she said reassuringly. "Just answer the question. Do you trust me no matter what?"

Chuck thought he understood. She wasn't talking about trust with regards to the Intersect and missions. She was talking about something more.

With absolute confidence, he replied, "Of course. I'll always trust you."

She smiled gratefully, and then the smile slowly faded. Her eyes fixed on his; she took two slow steps to close the distance between them. Rising to her toes, she placed one hand on his neck and the other in his hair, and kissed him deeply.

Chuck was so taken aback at first that he couldn't move. Sarah was not to be denied; her kiss continued undeterred, her mouth soft and gentle and patient.

When he finally wrapped his head around what was happening, the desperate ache in his heart, present for so long, suddenly transformed into desperate need. His arms wrapped around her, and he returned the kiss with an intense unbridled passion unlike anything he had ever felt.

His passion inflamed her own, and her intensity amplified. Her hands clutched at his hair and his shirt and his chest and his neck, roaming with wild abandon. His hands clutched desperately at her back and tangled in her long blond hair.

Time ceased to have any meaning. His body tried to take in everything about her, his senses deliciously overloading with her taste and her scent and the feel of her body pressed against him.

Seconds or minutes or hours later, the passion ebbed long enough for the kiss to glide to a halt, their lips caressing one last time as their mouths separated. Their hands continued to hold the other close, their bodies pressed together.

A shuddering breath escaped from Sarah. "I've wanted to do that for so long," she confessed. "It's just with … with the job and the…"

"Hey," Chuck interrupted with a stern look. It was Sarah's turn to be taken aback.

He continued, "Did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

She let out an emotional laugh as a tear escaped from her left eye. With a grateful smile, her lips rejoined his, and soon all either could think about was sating three years of suppressed desire.

* * *

The next morning, Chuck's alarm went off, a shrill summons to a world he didn't want to face.

Chuck lay naked beneath the covers. As was his custom lately, he refused to open his eyes. Today, the only thing that changed was the reason why Chuck didn't want to face the world. He knew what he would find when he opened his eyes.

He sighed. Denial wouldn't change anything.

He opened his eyes, and looked over to where she had lain. He saw exactly what he expected: her side of the bed was cold and empty.


	3. Time to Go

Casey was waiting at 9 am sharp by the fountain. Chuck had dressed in his Buy More uniform, although he suspected he wouldn't need it. Casey's outfit confirmed at least part of Chuck's thinking: Casey was decked out in a dark suit and tie with a crisply pressed white dress shirt rather than the usual green Buy More polo and khaki pants.

Chuck asked, "So, do I finally get to learn what's going on?"

"Yes, but not from me. We've got a plane to catch."

Chuck's heart sank. Sarah's discussion about unconditional trust and the impending travel likely could mean only one thing. He had mentally prepared himself for this as best he could as he got dressed this morning. "So, it's finally time for the bunker." He sighed. "Well, I suppose I was lucky to avoid it this long. Can I bring anything with me?"

Casey shook his head. "C'mon, Bartowski. Do you really think Walker would let you end up in an underground bunker now, after all the work she did to prevent that from happening?"

"Only if she thought it was best for me for some reason."

Casey grunted. "Well, she obviously didn't feel that way; she fought tooth-and-nail to keep you here for the past three years." Casey looked around the courtyard with feigned disgust. "Why, I'll never know." His voice betrayed the slightest hint of sadness, something Chuck would never have picked up had he not worked with Casey so closely for so long.

Casey was covering something up. "You won't be coming back here, will you," Chuck guessed.

Casey assessed him for a long moment, his face a mystery. Eventually, a small smile came to his face. "That's right. Time for a new assignment."

"And Sarah's already off on hers, I assume."

Casey again assessed him for a moment, this time nodding to answer Chuck's question. For the first time, and probably the last, Casey asked Chuck about his feelings. "You doing all right?"

"Yeah, I'm all right. I'll get over it." _Maybe_.

Both of the agents had acted strangely yesterday, although Sarah's actions were obviously more pronounced. That had bothered Chuck until, during a lull in his lovemaking with Sarah, he had an epiphany.

Sarah had always said the two of them could never be together while they worked together. There was little chance of her finally caving after three years if she hadn't caved before. The only explanation that made sense was that they weren't going to work together any more.

That also explained Casey's oddly relaxed mood the previous day. Casey was a tight-ass, but that didn't mean he was completely heartless. Chuck and Sarah had successfully battled their feelings for three years and almost never allowed those feelings to compromise a mission. Casey had previously allowed rules to be bent on occasion, but to allow the two to be alone like that would have been a major concession on his part, unless his time on the mission was coming to an end as well.

Having figured out the riddle, the last time Chuck and Sarah made love had become a tender, unspoken act of goodbye. They both unsuccessfully tried to pretend that the other did not know, making the moment all the more powerful and bittersweet. In the end, the pair had been left clutching each other long after their passion ebbed, reluctant to let go.

They hadn't said another word to each other. There was nothing that could be said.

He thought of begging her to stay. He thought of asking her to run away with him. He thought of a great many things.

But in the end, he had to respect how things had to be. For Sarah Walker, the job came first. And loving Sarah Walker meant accepting her for who she was.

In the end, he had to trust that she would give him everything she could. Even if it was only one night.

Lost in his thoughts, Chuck missed the slightest of smirks on Casey's face. "She gave me a message for you."

Pulled from his thoughts, Chuck raised an eyebrow.

"She said to tell you, 'It's hard to say goodbye,'"

Chuck's grin grew bigger and goofier despite himself. It was an ironic statement from a woman who, by her own admission, didn't like to talk.

At least they had the one night. That was one more night than he thought they would have.

* * *

A car service was to pick up the pair outside the apartment complex at 9:15, giving Chuck enough time to head back to the apartment and change into a pair of slacks and a button-down. He deliberately chose the outfit because Sarah had helped him pick it out at the mall a few months back. Checking himself in the full-length mirror, he adjusted his collar and smoothed a crease in the shirt, just as she had done for him so many times.

He allowed himself a melancholy smile.

After dressing, he took one last look around the room. He could still picture her perfectly from last night. He sighed as he irrationally closed the door to his room behind him, wondering if he would ever see it again. Casey had been completely unforthcoming about what was next for Chuck. Maybe Casey didn't truly know.

After a quiet ride to the airport, Chuck was surprised to find that a Leer jet awaited the pair at LAX. Chuck hadn't been expecting that; when Casey had said they had a plane to catch, Chuck instinctively expected coach class on a major airline. The private jet only fueled his curiosity, but again, Casey refused to say anything.

As Chuck sat in a leather chair sipping Coke from a small plastic cup, he couldn't help but think about Sarah. Surprisingly, last night seemed to help more than it hurt, at least right now. While part of him had always known Sarah's feelings for him, to see her finally act on them meant more than he could ever put into words.

Deep down, he had always known that she would leave without saying goodbye. That was just the way she worked, much like the way that she had asked him if he unconditionally trusted her without offering her own trust in return.

Truth be told, he was still a bit puzzled by her insistence on discussing whether he fully trusted her. Maybe that was just her way of reassuring him that she wouldn't leave him if she thought he was in any danger: one last piece of business to wrap up before she gave in to her feelings.

He suddenly realized that he might be missing part of the point of the question. Maybe she was not only ensuring that he wouldn't worry about what was coming in his future, but she was also asking if he could accept things the way they needed to be. Had he answered differently, maybe she would have turned around and walked away.

He would likely never know for sure.

Looking out the plane's window at the fluffy white clouds, he allowed himself to be distracted by glimpses of the ground far below. He didn't want to think about never seeing her again.

* * *

The plane touched down at Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. a little after 4:00 pm local time. Another black sedan waited at the airport for them. Chuck hadn't realized there was an airport so close to the interior of the city; they were in the heart of the capitol before he knew it.

The car dropped them off outside a plain-looking office building in sight of the Capitol building. Casey, still not revealing anything about where they were headed, wordlessly escorted Chuck into the lobby. He signed Chuck in, acquiring a visitor's badge and a pass from the guard station, and motioned him through the metal detector. Casey had to remove a surprising number of weapons to make it through the detector. Well, the weapons were surprising to the guards; Chuck had seen it all before.

Once past the guard station, Casey guided Chuck to a bank of elevators. There were several people waiting there, but when Casey showed the armed guard monitoring the area his pass, those people were forced to wait for a second elevator.

_Where the heck are we going?_ Chuck wondered to himself.

Inside the elevator, Casey slid the pass into a slot on the floor selection panel. The doors shut, and the lights inside the elevator turned red and a monitor on the wall lit up. A female voice said, "Identification please."

"Casey, John J." Casey said. As he spoke, wavy lines appeared on the monitor, appearing to be generated by the sound of his voice. The monitor pulled another wavy line from a database and compared the two, indicating that the voice print matched.

The lights turned back to normal, and the elevator started moving up at high speed. There were three indicator lights at the top of the panel where there normally would have been additional buttons; the elevator stopped when the middle light lit.

The doors opened.

Chuck didn't know what he expected to see, but what he did not expect was a simple, wide white hallway, going both left and right, lit with bright fluorescent lights. "This way," Casey indicated as he pointed to Chuck's left.

The pair walked down the somewhat busy hallway, passing a couple of people with faces buried in memos, seemingly indifferent to anyone who might be walking past. Chuck wondered if that was because far more important people than the two of them typically walked these halls.

Chuck glanced at some of the unassuming name plates on the wall. J. O'Neal. P. Mitchell. N. Jessep. He recognized a couple of the names; they were obviously all high-ranking military officers from the décor in their offices. As they passed an office with the name "J. Davis", Casey looked disappointed that the door was closed. "Old friend," he replied to Chuck's unspoken question with a mischievous smirk.

They passed a few more doors when Casey finally stopped. The nameplate on the wall read "L. Beckman".

Chuck didn't need to hear it, but Casey said it anyway.

"Here we are."

Casey opened the door into the office he'd seen so many times on the communications array. There sat General Beckman in all her wrinkled glory, Director Graham standing at her side.

The general spoke. "Agent Casey. Mr. Bartowski. Please, come in."

Chuck had acted playful with the two officers over the videoconferences, but it was entirely different being in the presence of the pair. Any notion of being flippant evaporated, especially since he didn't know what fate the two had planned for him. He swallowed hard as he took a position flanking Casey across from the officers.

Seeing their serious countenances, part of him instinctively wondered if he should have taken the opportunity to run. He quickly dismissed the notion. That would have meant giving up the final night with Sarah, and he wouldn't trade that for anything. Besides, he trusted that Sarah wouldn't let him walk into a bad situation.

"General. Director," Casey greeted the pair formally. "I hereby deliver the Intersect, thus completing my mission."

"Excellent work, Agent Casey," the general said. "I know this wasn't a typical assignment for you, but you came through with flying colors."

"Thank you, General." Casey beamed as he stood at attention.

"Your request for R&R has been approved; it's long overdue. We'll see you back here in two weeks."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dismissed."

Casey came out of attention. Chuck looked at him questioningly as he started to head for the door. "Wait!"

Casey turned back around, a quizzical look on his face.

"That's it? Three years of working together, and you're just going to walk away?"

"Of course."

There were a million things that Chuck wanted to say. He had thought that he had Casey had become friends, in a weird sort of way. To see him seem so impassive was a bit disappointing.

Then it came to Chuck: Casey didn't want to show any attachment in front of the officers.

Chuck could respect that.

Rather than throw his arms around Casey like he wanted, he simply offered his hand. "Thank you, Casey. For everything."

Casey regarded the hand for a moment before reaching out and taking it with a firm grip. Looking Chuck straight in the eye, he said, "Bartowski, it's been an honor serving with you."

It was probably as high a compliment as Casey had ever given, certainly as high a compliment as Casey had ever given Chuck.

Chuck gave Casey a huge, probably unprofessional grin. It may have been his imagination, but Chuck thought he saw Casey have to fight to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up slightly.

Without another word, Casey turned and left the office, leaving Chuck alone with the military brass.

The room was eerily silent. Sarah and Casey were gone, and he still had no idea what was in store for him.


	4. An End and a Beginning

It was intimidating enough standing in the office with General Beckman and Director Graham, but especially so without Sarah or Casey by his side. All he had was his trust in Sarah, the trust that she wouldn't have left his side if anything bad could happen.

That trust was enough.

He was able to stay calm and look the pair in the eye. The two assessed Chuck for a long moment. Finally, the director spoke.

"Mr. Bartowski, you will be happy to know that, due to the intel you provided from a flash two months ago, we were able to track down what we believe to be the remaining Fulcrum leadership within the American intelligence community. Our belief is that Fulcrum is no longer any kind of threat."

"In addition," the general added, "a month ago we were successfully able to deploy a pair of Intersect computer systems at separate secure facilities. Because of these two events, we feel that your level of safety has substantially increased. As such, we have terminated your protection detail … which I feel certain you have already ascertained."

Chuck affirmed this with a nod.

The finality of it all suddenly struck him: it truly was over.

He tried to sort through what he had been told. He wasn't surprised to learn that a pair of Intersect systems were deployed this time around: Fulcrum agents had successfully destroyed both of the previous incarnations of the Intersect, so the redundancy made sense. Heck, it was standard practice in the IT world to have back-ups for mission critical systems.

Plus, with Fulcrum gone, he had to assume there wasn't an imminent threat of another internal strike. The disbanding of his team seemed to confirm that.

However, he still had the Intersect knowledge in his head, which meant he still was a vulnerability. "What if somebody else…"

The director said, "We will obviously need to take steps to assure that the knowledge in your head does not fall into the wrong hands. You have two choices: you can be surgically implanted with a device that can be used to track your location. This device also has the capability to remotely assassinate you in the unlikely event that you are captured.

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that at all. What's my other choice?"

"You can be immediately relocated to an underground facility for the foreseeable future."

"Surgery it is."

The general nodded her approval. "We suspected you would choose that option."

_Not much of an option_, Chuck thought. He couldn't wait any longer to ask the question. "General, Director, if I may … what's next for me?"

Director Graham said, "That's been the subject of considerable discussion. To be honest, your performance as an agent was sub par at best. There were a number of missions that were compromised because you made the most basic of mistakes. Were you a regular agent, you would have been kicked out of the service during your first six months."

Chuck's jaw nearly hit the floor. "But…"

The director cut him off. "But we do understand the uniqueness of your situation. While you made those mistakes, they were certainly explainable because you didn't have the luxury of the two years of training that our field agents normally receive."

_Luxury?_ Chuck thought to himself. _Sheesh._

The general said, "In addition, your intelligence, intuition, and improvisational skills resulted in a number of missions turning from failures to successes. In fact, just as Agents Casey and Walker saved your life on a number of occasions, your actions likely saved theirs on a number of occasions as well."

The director said, "There are two other things that are also to your credit. In our opinion, it is unlikely that, had we put you in an underground facility as we first desired, we would have ever been able to foil Fulcrum's efforts to take over the agencies. In addition, because of your cooperation, we now have a far greater understanding of the potential of what we've developed. For all of this, we owe you a debt of thanks."

As Casey had done earlier, Chuck beamed with pride. "Thank you, General. Director."

"To show our gratitude, we have arranged for a couple of things."

"First, we have cleared your record at Stanford. Apparently, Agent Walker recently 'discovered' a recording of Bryce Larkin scheming to get you kicked out because he believed that you would be unfit to be an agent. The dean is aware of Professor Fleming's relationship to us, and with the professor's corroboration, the charges were dropped and your second semester grades were counted as your final grades."

Chuck gaped. His record had been cleared? "Does that mean…?"

"Here is your diploma, along with a letter of apology from the university." The director presented a manila envelope to Chuck, who peeked inside with a skeptical expression. Sure enough, inside was the diploma, a letter of apology … and a legal document.

"What's this?" Chuck asked, pulling out the document.

The director managed to look a little embarrassed. "It's a release form stating that the university won't be held liable in any way for the misunderstanding. If you could…"

Chuck thought about that for a moment. He had to admit that it rankled that he had to sign anything. However, it made some sense; the admission that the charges were false opened the university up to liability. Chuck had no interest in suing Stanford when the evidence that cleared him would likely be labeled classified should he attempt any legal action.

Heck, he had no interest in suing Stanford in the first place. This wasn't their fault, and Stanford had been like home to him.

After skimming the document, he signed with a slightly shaky hand. Then he reverently pulled out the diploma, some eight years overdue. _Stanford University has conferred onto Charles Irving Bartowski the degree of…_

It was beautiful. He held the document reverently in his hands.

"Another thing," the general said. "We have arranged for three years of back pay for services rendered."

What she said barely registered at first, as enraptured as Chuck was with the diploma. Then it sank in. "Wait, what?"

The general was holding out a check. He set the diploma and the envelope down onto the chair behind him before taking the check from the general.

The check had a very large number on it. Chuck coughed, wheezing slightly when he realized that his eyes weren't deceiving him.

"That's three years at the standard rate for a top field agent," the director informed him. "And the back taxes have already been dealt with."

Chuck looked at him disbelievingly before looking back down at the check: 211,673.49.

He felt like his heart would burst. He was overwhelmed. He was trying to find the appropriate words for the pair, to somehow convey how touched he was that they recognized all he had been through and the sacrifices he had made.

Then it came to him. This wasn't about what he had done: he was being recruited. This was as much about keeping him on as anything else.

He looked up at the two, trying to ascertain what they wanted from him.

The director nodded approvingly. "You're right, Mr. Bartowski. We recognize your unique ability to help us realize the full potential of the Intersect, so we would like you to join the CIA."

"In what capacity," he asked suspiciously. _Could I somehow get assigned with Sarah? _he wondered hopefully. The director's answer made it seem unlikely.

"We would like you to continue to work with the technology of the Intersect. This could take a couple of forms. The first is that you could work directly with one of the Intersect computer systems, either in Virginia or in Los Angeles."

"And the other?"

"You could conduct research on subliminal pattern recognition, determining how the Intersect can optimally code the information and how subjects can improve at retrieving the information."

"Either way, you would also be asked to spend part of your time evaluating and working with subjects who are good candidates to join the agency and use this information."

Chuck thought about asking what would happen if he refused, but he decided against it. The reality was that the CIA's offer was far too tempting. They were offering him his diploma, what amounted to a six-figure signing bonus, and the opportunity to do cutting-edge technology research.

Plus, if he could continue work with the Intersect, he might be able to find out what Sarah was doing.

"Where would I be working if I chose the research?"

When he heard the answer, he immediately knew which option he would choose.

* * *

Ellie bustled about the kitchen. She had just gotten off her shift, but Devon was in the middle of an operation with a number of complications, so didn't she expect him for a while. Still, she went ahead and cooked dinner so that he would at least have leftovers if he got home too late.

The doorbell rang, startling her. She looked at the clock; it was coming up on 10 pm. Who would be stopping by so late? She walked to the front door, wiping her hands on a towel as she peeked through the narrow vertical window to the side of the door.

It was Chuck. Immediately, she expected the worst; his three-year relationship with Sarah had always seemed a bit off, despite how much Ellie liked her. But when she flicked on the porch light, she saw an energy in his eyes that had been lacking for a long time.

She opened the door, exposing her to the full force of his radiant smile. He threw his arms around his sister, surprising her with the vigor of the hug despite the large manila envelope in his hand.

She gladly returned the hug, but when he was done, she pulled back and looked at him questioningly. He just shook his head and said, "You are not going to believe the day that I had."

* * *

The pair sat at the kitchen table. Chuck had needed to explain everything four or five times, but even with the documents sitting on the table in front of her, Ellie still had trouble digesting it all.

Director Graham had given Chuck clearance to reveal the most basic details about the past three years to his sister. The director had been very specific about what Chuck could and could not tell Ellie, but it mostly followed common sense: Chuck could reveal that Casey and Sarah were agents and part of his team, but nothing specific about the missions, and certainly nothing about the Intersect.

Morgan was specifically to be told nothing, except about the diploma and his new position.

"So, let me try this again," Ellie said. "You and John and Sarah were actually a team of agents working for the government. You defused bombs and dodged bullets and busted bad guys? And the whole getting kicked out of Stanford thing was just a cover story?"

The last part was the only part that made Chuck uncomfortable. However, the director had insisted on keeping certain elements of the story simple, and that was how he was allowed to explain what happened at Stanford.

It was kind of true, he told himself as he nodded.

"So why can you tell me about this all now and not before?"

Chuck shrugged. "Our assignment is over."

Ellie sat back in her chair, taking it all in. He could see the gears turning as it started to register that her darling, nerdish, bumbling younger brother was a secret agent. She was dumbfounded, and he couldn't blame her.

She slowly leaned towards him … and then punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

"Ouch!" Chuck winced. "What was that about?"

"Hmph. You're not much of an agent if you couldn't see my punch coming."

"Oh, c'mon, you can't be mad."

"Don't try to tell me what I can't do. Do you know how much I worried about you? Getting kicked out of Stanford, not dating for five years, never getting out of the Buy More…"

Still rubbing his shoulder, Chuck replied, "Right, because finding out that I was a CIA field agent would have kept you from worrying."

Ellie obviously wanted to find something wrong with that logic. She half-heartedly took the dish towel from the table and threw it at him.

Chuck's face showed his obvious confusion. "I thought you'd be happy about all of this."

She stared at the documents on the table again, still trying to get her head around everything. "Oh, I probably will be. It's just a lot to take in, you know?"

"Believe me, I know."

Ellie looked up as if something just occurred to her. "So, the three years with Sarah was just a cover?"

"Yes," Chuck said. Then he added, "And no."

Ellie's face had started to fall, but she quickly became intrigued instead. "OK, you're going to have to explain this one. Start from the beginning."

Chuck tried to explain his relationship with Sarah to his sister. He apologized about ten times for being deliberately vague; he couldn't even talk about the night of their first date, because it was too intertwined with the Intersect.

He rambled for nearly twenty minutes. He talked about his feelings for her had been strong from the start, and how her feelings seemed to grow as well. He talked about how conflicted she was, and the different times they had almost taken things further, and how much he ached for her once he realized that he could never have her while they worked together.

He told her all the things that he wanted to talk to her about over the previous three years. Sensing this, she stayed quiet and let him get everything out of his system, nodding wisely as he poured out his heart to her.

Apparently, three years of passion for Sarah wasn't all that Chuck had suppressed.

He finished by filling her in on the events of the previous night, leaving out the appropriate intimate details. He started with the conversation about trust, and how Sarah finally was willing to cross the line, and how bittersweet it all was.

When he finished, Ellie smiled fondly, if sadly, at her brother. "And now that you don't work together?"

"I don't know. She's off on another mission somewhere, I guess. I'm not allowed to know."

"That stinks."

"That it does," he said, staring off into space.

After a long silent moment, she looked at him nervously. "You're not going out into the field too, are you?"

"Nope." His grin was like the sun coming up. He hadn't told her yet what was next for him.


	5. A New Life

Chuck walked across the oval at Stanford; he was running slightly behind for his 10:30 class. His students were growing used to his tardiness, writing it off as a quirk of the eccentric but engaging young professor.

His classes had quickly become some of the most popular on campus. His enthusiasm was contagious and engaging, and his knowledge was positively encyclopedic. Not to mention that some of young women were smitten by his smile, good looks, and easy-going nature.

He had blossomed since returning to Stanford. He had spent his first semester taking graduate level courses that supported his area of expertise, along with some 'independent study' under Professor Fleming. Fleming had never fully recovered from the crossbow bolt to the back, and had only agreed to stay on until the CIA could find a suitable replacement.

In an ironic twist, Chuck was that replacement.

After the initial semester, Chuck had immediately been given a job as a professor despite the fact that he was still taking classes. Apparently, the school had initially been nervous about the appointment, but after unbelievably positive feedback from his first set of students, that concern was quickly alleviated.

Chuck was incredibly busy and incredibly happy. This semester, he was taking a class and teaching two more. He spent a fair amount of time on research, taking promising test subjects from his classes and engaging them in lab experiments that both gauged their aptitude for the CIA and helped further his theories about how the Intersect data could be more effectively absorbed by agents.

In addition, his need to use the Intersect in his research allowed him to travel back to Los Angeles once or twice per month, when he could see his sister and Morgan. And now, he never needed to cancel dinner or make excuses about being pulled away.

Of course, not everything was perfect. Morgan had taken Chuck's move to Stanford particularly hard, but it had probably been a blessing in disguise for him. After Chuck left, Morgan realized there was nothing tying him to the Buy More, and actually started to look for other jobs. He had attracted some interest from a software company after he submitted a hefty volume of feedback on their latest game. Impressed by the ridiculous level of detail he went into, he now helped to review game scripts and to test their latest offerings.

In other words, Morgan played and talked about video games for a living.

It was still tough to be separated from his good friend, the guy who had helped get Chuck through the rough patch he suffered after he was expelled. But even "life partners" couldn't be together all the time.

That was something Chuck knew all too well. As he stood outside the door to his class, "Pattern Recognition and the Workings of the Human Mind", he took a moment to pull out his iPhone, scrolling to one of his favorite pictures of Sarah.

He still missed her terribly. He wondered where she was, or if she was even alive.

Sarah could be anywhere. Truth be told, she was everywhere. She was in everything he saw and everything he did. Whatever he had become, she was both a part of him and a missing piece of him.

Glancing at the corner of the phone display, he noted that the time read 10:34. _Late again._

Opening the door, books and lecture notes under one arm, he immediately addressed the students as he walked to the front of the room. "So, is anyone recognizing a pattern with the arrival of the professor these days?"

His audience gave a half-hearted laugh, which was about right. It was a half-hearted joke from their professor, who was suddenly in an abnormally melancholy mood.

* * *

Chuck relaxed on the deck of his home, feet up on the railing as he reclined in his favorite deck chair, drinking a beer from a bottle.

It felt good just to think the words 'home'.

He stared out into the darkness at the treetops down the slope of his back yard, listening to the sound of the wind rustling through the branches and the leaves. This was one of his favorite places to unwind and let his mind relax; he did his best thinking here.

Still, it wasn't his favorite place in the house.

He got up, slipping through the sliding glass door into the breakfast nook. His gangly legs carried him across the living room to the stairs leading to the upstairs loft.

As he climbed the stairs, he reflected on how it seemed like the days were so long now. They weren't long in the sense of being endless, as they had become during his last days as a field agent, but rather in the sense of how much he felt he could accomplish.

That was one of the benefits of the three years as a field agent: when he needed to work two jobs, he had become much more efficient in getting the little things done. That efficiency now allowed him the time to do everything he did, plus the time to continue his new hobby.

The stairs rose into the center of the open space that covered the entire length of the top floor, with short walls on three sides protecting anyone from inadvertently falling into the stairwell. He walked over to the nearest wall, flipping a series of three switches. The room was bathed in soft light.

Walls on either side of the room gave way to a sloped ceiling that met in a straight line high above the center of the room, giving the loft an airy, open feeling. There were three windows along each of the long walls of the room, and a series of three south-facing skylights let sunlight pour into the room during the day.

He regarded the room with pride. The room represented many hours of his time, time lovingly devoted. He had deliberately avoided putting any electronic devices up here. This is where he escaped from all of that. This was where he remembered.

As he crossed the room, he set his beer on one of the only surfaces in the room, a small coffee table next to a beat-up leather recliner.

The rest of the room was devoted to numerous canvases of varying shapes and sizes. Some hung on the walls, some were leaning against one another in bunches, a couple lay horizontally on the workbench at the far end of the room, and still others lay haphazardly on the floor in various states of completion.

Chuck had never shown any interest in art, but he somehow found relaxation in painting. His life was so tied to images via the Intersect that it seemed a somehow natural extension of his hidden abilities.

The hobby seemed an appropriate homage to the thing which had first cursed him and then rescued him.

Chuck had come to realize how lucky he truly was. He had wallowed in self-pity for five years, unable to rescue himself from a single crushing event that had shattered his confidence. Had Bryce never mailed the Intersect to him, he had no idea where he might be right now.

Later, after the three years had worn him down, he was fortunate enough to again be pulled from the situation that was affecting him so badly, and to have his dreams handed to him on a silver platter.

So many were not lucky enough to be pushed like that, to be forcibly lifted from their depression. Many people needed to do their own lifting. Where might he be now if that email had never come; would he have eventually found a way out on his own? Where might he have ended up if Fulcrum had eluded capture for longer, keeping Chuck employed in a role that was slowly tearing him apart?

Chuck liked to think so, but the truth was that he just didn't know.

Certainly, his efforts had helped make it possible for all that to come to an end, and he had made sacrifices that he was never so much asked to make as forced to make. In the end, he liked to think he had gotten his just deserts.

Still, he had to admit he was lucky in many ways.

Staring at the mostly finished canvas on the easel, he nodded approvingly. He had begun his hobby awkwardly at first, but over the past year, his skill had improved dramatically. Only after some practice had he felt prepared to start what he thought was his most challenging project.

On the canvas, Sarah stood facing Chuck in a large, dark, empty room. A blurry bluish, horizontal cylinder was visible between the pair. Sarah was dressed all in black, her blond hair up in a bun as she stared intently at Chuck. Chuck returned her stare just as intently, somehow resplendent in his Buy More uniform.

_Just a few last touches_, Chuck thought.

Over the next hour, Chuck finished the painting. He touched up Sarah's eyes, which he had trouble making as intensely blue as he remembered them. He fixed his hair, which he had to admit was probably a little wilder than he had initially drawn.

And, as a last touch, he pulled out some bright red paint and drew some intersecting red lines at the base of the cylinder to represent the countdown clock. He left the details of the cylinder and the clock abstract enough that only he and one other person would recognize the scene.

In white letters, he inscribed "The Kiss" in the bottom left-hand corner. In the bottom right corner, he added the initials "CIB".

When he finished, he put down the brush and the paint, wiping his hands on a towel. He walked towards the dark window facing the easel and lay down on the couch beneath it. He stared at the image a long time. He was lucky in many ways; just not all of them.

He still had no real idea whether she had any intention of returning to him. He trusted she would return to him if she could hold onto her feelings while doing her job. It was the last part that gave him trouble.

He closed his eyes. In his dreams, Sarah stood in front of him as the timer ran down. She kissed him again before the clock could run out.


	6. Love Letters

Chuck was in Los Angeles, ready for another refresh of the Intersect data. He was particularly excited about today, as he had made some modifications to how the images were encoded, suspecting that it would improve retrieval of the data substantially.

He took five Advil with a large glass of water. One thing he hadn't been able to do was to figure out how to make the absorption process hurt any less. It was fairly taxing on the brain, something that might keep him from undergoing this process too many more times. However, the neuroscientists monitoring his condition assured him that he wasn't close to any type of danger yet. He was also by far the best test subject the CIA had, although three of the students Chuck had recruited showed significant promise.

He sat down in the chair in the center of the white room, strapping himself in and reclining the chair slightly. With a nod to the technician, the flow of images began.

As if no time had passed, Chuck suddenly came out of his trance, noting the sudden onset of a terrible headache. A technician walked into the room; it took him a minute to cross the large room to release Chuck from the chair. Chuck rubbed his wrists in relief as the technician checked Chuck's vital signs. The only way Chuck truly knew that any time had passed came from looking at his watch: it was three hours later.

Absorption happened much more quickly in the white room than it had when Bryce sent him the email, as the mind could absorb multiple images at any one time. In addition, by repeating images in a certain sequence, the mind retained a higher percentage of the images. These were just a couple of the improvements that Chuck had made.

However, Chuck was most anxious to try a cognitive index he had built into the encoding program. Theoretically, it was supposed to make retrieval of data a far more conscious effort rather than the awkward random triggers that Chuck had been forced to rely upon during his time as a field agent. In addition, it was supposed to make it easier for the host to correlate different sets of data, using one flash to link to additional flashes.

He knew he should wait until the throbbing in his head subsided, but he couldn't resist trying out his new toy. Staying in his chair, he closed his eyes and focused on an image of Sarah.

A flash immediately came to his mind, one that included all of her service records and personal information. He couldn't contain his excitement. The index seemed to be working perfectly!

He quickly pulled his mind away, not wanting to find out certain things about her that way. He had the information locked in his mind, but it felt like a violation to even consider learning more about her from her personnel file. It was a bit of an odd distinction given the details about her life that he did know: the missions she had been on, the people she had seduced or killed, and the sacrifices she had made. However, Chuck felt strongly that he keep things this way.

As he pulled his mind away, he found he was able to access her file at will, summoning her file photograph a couple of times before slamming the door shut on the flash. More exciting, he found that the correlation indexing seemed to be working as well, he could detect where flashes correlating to Agent Sarah Walker were located in his mind.

Trying to remain calm, he tentatively followed a link. The flash contained details about a mission in Africa. Everything was there: mission goals, partners, and reports detailing the operation. Apparently she had completed that operation about two years prior, just after the time that she had left.

He found Sarah's file again, and traversed another link to another flash. This one was in Bratislava; Sarah had been investigating a higher-up in a Slovak manufacturing company that was suspected of ties to the Russian mafia. Here there were the usual mission reports, but a great deal more images and video.

Chuck couldn't resist. He started scrolling through the pictures of her, a trick he had learned as his control over the Intersect flashes improved over the years.

There was an image of her leaving a street tram, looking back over her shoulder as she disembarked as if conscious of her surroundings but unworried that she was being followed. It was obviously heading towards winter, as she wore a sleek-fitting coat with two buttons pinning the coat shut and a plain scarf to protect against the wind blowing through her hair.

There was another picture of her crossing a busy intersection along with a crowd of people, her gaze focused straight ahead. She wore the same outfit; the two pictures were obviously taken in close proximity from cameras mounted high on light fixtures or building walls along the bustling street.

Chuck lovingly flipped through the snapshots as if he held the pictures in his hand, delighting in seeing her. This particular mission was obviously about surveillance, as none of the images showed her doing anything more than moving about town, taking pictures or having the occasional conversation. Still, she looked vibrant and energetic, if serious, as she went about her business.

There was one video clip of her; he saved that for last. It was a clip obviously taken from a security camera mounted high on the wall of a darkened train station platform as she arrived in Bratislava. A few straggling travelers exited the train, including Sarah. He watched her with a smile as she lithely jumped onto the platform with an unconscious grace and started walking down the platform.

She noticed the camera on the wall; her eyes rolled to the side as if calculating. He smiled at the familiar habit. To his surprise, she looked at the camera and smiled back. She mouthed something, and then continued out of the camera frame.

What had she said?

He forced the image to play again. Unfortunately, his control wasn't fine-grained enough to allow him to speed up or slow down the playback. He watched the video over and over again, determined to figure out what she said.

Despite his years with the Intersect, he could never get the hang of lip-reading. He tried to sound it out.

"I want something something pie?"

"It something pay to try?"

"It shard toupee good buy?"

It finally came to him. He sat back in disbelief.

"It's hard to say goodbye."

He sat for a moment, stunned. That was the line she had left for him with Casey. He now remembered that it was a line that Bryce had once told him to tell Sarah … and then he had later tracked down Sarah.

Had she sent him a message?

He went back to the flash on her file, and linked out to another flash. This time, he ignored everything else, going straight to the one video clip, not even bothering to figure out what the mission was. This video was from a camera in a large airport. Again, Sarah was walking as she noticed the security camera. Her brilliant blue eyes turned sad, and she mouthed the words again, "It's hard to say goodbye."

Then she cupped her hand into a 'C' for the briefest of moments, and then gently put the palm of her hand over her heart.

Chuck laughed out loud as he stared blankly into space. The technician looked at him strangely. "Are you OK, Professor Bartowski?"

Chuck's eyes refocused. He nodded, tears in his eyes. "Oh, yeah. I'm good." He gave another violent laugh, his movements shaking tears from his eyes onto his cheeks.

He started searching his head for more videos of Sarah.


	7. Professor Bartowski

The need for office hours normally didn't rankle Chuck, but today he had a lot on his plate. What made it worse was that the office hours were pretty much unnecessary.

It was Saturday, the last day of final exam week and the spring semester. Because his exams had been on Tuesday and Wednesday, grades for his classes were long since posted and his students had either left campus or had other things on his mind. Still, it was university policy to maintain the hours all week.

This kept Chuck from getting to the lab. Director Graham was extremely excited by the continued progress he was making on the new cognitive index; it had compounded the efficiency of retrieving data from memory while providing more conscious control for the host. Buoyed by that success and under pressure to improve even more, he was anxious to incorporate a few new techniques into the Intersect encoding algorithms so a new version could be uploaded into a pair of newly minted agents before they were sent into the field.

In addition, he was getting pressure from Stanford to write up some of his research that could be published. All the other university professors were required to publish a certain number of articles in order to maintain tenure, and some of the other professors had inevitably started to question why Professor Bartowski was unpublished.

Some things never changed. Here he was, needing to maintain a cover by doing extra work, even if he enjoyed this work a lot more.

He sighed. The clock read 3:23. Surely it wouldn't matter if … no, he needed to stay until 3:30. His mind drifted again.

The real benefit of the cognitive index was that it allowed him to follow the progress of the people he knew in the intelligence committee. He could look up the files on his fellow agents - even now, that phrase felt odd to Chuck - and track their progress. Technically, he probably wasn't supposed to look through the files quite as much as he did, but he had a semi-legitimate excuse in needing to explore the boundaries of what his new encodings could allow, and he couldn't resist seeing how things ended up for his friends.

Casey was leading a team of ten agents called upon for the most complicated and most sensitive of missions. There were also rumors that "Sugar Bear" had been seen in the company of a certain French agent a time or two; however, nothing had been confirmed. At least, not by anyone without access to an Intersect system.

Carina had been seriously wounded in a drug-bust-gone-bad about five months prior. The mission report suggested that she may have pressed her luck one time too often. The initial prognosis was that she would lose enough movement in one of her legs to prevent her from working in the field any more, but she attacked her rehabilitation with a vigor that suggested that she might beat the odds and get her old position back.

Bryce Larkin was still officially dead as far as the CIA was concerned, but the Intersect knew better. With Fulcrum gone, Peter Aldridge now roamed the world in a sort of "Mission Impossible" set-up, where he would receive instructions remotely and then be counted upon to find a way to accomplish his objective with little CIA support.

As for Sarah, Chuck found himself nervous every time he found new files after an upload, wondering if the new file would end with a "KIA", the acronym for Killed In Action. While she had a couple of close calls, in the end her skill and careful planning had kept her safe, at least as far as the files he had could tell him.

Chuck forced himself to watch and read nearly every last detail from her adventures. As he scanned her files, his emotions would run the gamut from amazed to horrified to worried to sickened when he read what she was called upon to do. However, he was determined to know and understand Sarah for the person she really was, not just for what he knew from their time together in Los Angeles. That included the things that were more difficult to stomach.

There were times when he was shaken to the core by what she did, but in the end, he came to love her even more. Knowingly or not, Sarah had shared the core of herself with him, a part of herself that she kept protected and intact from the demands of her job. He understood why she had trouble talking about her feelings and why she needed to keep him at arm's length. She was good at her job, in part, because she kept herself detached from all emotion. Much the way that the two had kept things professional, that was the way it had to be.

He liked to think that he reminded herself of who she truly was, of the person that Sarah might have forgotten during the years prior to meeting him. At the same time, he hoped that the little flashes of emotion she showed in the messages that she sent were now a source of strength. He hoped it was her way of leaning on him for the briefest of moments as she started a new mission, knowing that he was out there waiting for her, trusting in her.

He hoped that was the case.

His desk phone rang, startling him from his reverie. Angrily staring at the phone, he wanted to throw the phone across the room, wondering for the umpteenth time why the university wouldn't let him get rid of the old thing. He gave his cell phone number to all his students any way; virtually nobody called that number.

He stood up as he answered, intending to pack the things from his desk into his computer bag as he talked on the phone.

"Professor Bartowski."

"Hey, man, it's Morgan!"

"Lil' buddy! How are things?"

"They are so good. This new game is gonna be a killer."

"I'm getting a beta version, right?"

"Absolutely. You're going to love it."

Chuck grinned, cradling the phone with his neck as he started to throw things into his bag. Head down and focused on his conversation, he didn't notice the figure standing in the doorway, staring at him as if he were a ghost.

Giving a gentle knock, the figure moved into the room. Chuck didn't notice as he talked to Morgan. "Now, how's the sniper feature? You know you need me to watch your back, or you'll get fragged inside twenty seconds."

Standing in front of the desk, the figure waited patiently to be noticed, giving a gentle knock on the desk. Chuck faintly registered this knock, sticking an index finger into the air as if to say, "One moment please."

He glanced up and back down. When what he saw registered, the phone dropped from his neck and onto the neck with a loud clatter as his neck straightened.

"Chuck? Chuck?!" Morgan's voice came from the ear piece of the receiver. Chuck forgot about him.

Sarah stood in front of the desk, staring at him with those eyes. She wore a flirty blue top with little buttons, a pair of form-fitting jeans and a slightly nervous smile.

"Hi," he said, eyes wide at the sight of her.

Her smile grew a little more confident. "Hi, Chuck."


	8. A Matter of Trust

Neither Chuck nor Sarah moved for a long moment.

Chuck wasn't often at a loss for words these days, but this was definitely one of those times. He did a quick calculation in his head; it had been a little over three years since the night they had spent together.

She looked the same. She looked absolutely the same.

Sarah finally continued her greeting. "Is it even 'Chuck'? Or should I say, 'Professor Bartowski'."

Chuck grinned, a bit sheepishly. "It is a bit of a mouthful." He smiled. "You can call me Chuck," he said a bit teasingly.

Her eyebrow and sarcastic smile. "Oh, really? I suppose I should feel honored. Not just anybody gets to use your first name, I imagine."

"Nope. Just Morgan. And, Ellie and Devon, of course. And the other professors here. And all my students, and…"

"All right, all right, I get it." She laughed. After a pause, she added, "It's good to see you."

His face, having crinkled into a mocking grin, grew more serious. "It's good to be seen." It somehow seemed more appropriate to say that, given that he'd been 'seeing' her using his flashes. He was about to say as much, but she spoke first.

"Looks like you've done well for yourself," she said, walking across the room. She ran a hand along an antique bookcase on the side wall before glancing back at him.

It was an odd thing for her to say. He realized that part of what she was doing: she was deliberately keeping herself distant after one of her self-defense mechanisms kicked in.

"So, what name should I call you?" he asked, trying to make things a little more intimate.

She looked at him curiously. "What, you don't know?"

"My last upload was a few months back. The neuroscientists are getting concerned that repeated uploads are creating too much strain, so I'm limited to two a year now. Maybe less."

She gave him a concerned look.

He tried to assuage her fears. "I'm fine. But you didn't answer my question."

Hesitantly, she walked over towards him and offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Sarah. Sarah Jennings."

He laughed. He reached out and took her hand. "Good to meet you, Sarah."

Their handshake lingered; the touch of her hand heightened the ache in his heart.

She stared at him for a long moment, before her eyes widened slightly and she pulled her hand away. Looking to one side, she said, "I needed a new alias." She looked back at him. "But I really wanted to be 'Sarah' again."

Her eyes added so much meaning to those words. Still, she was still like a nervous deer, threatening to bolt given the slightest reason.

He stared at her with gentle eyes. He was suddenly swept back to the night that they had a similar conversation.

There was a question that he never got to ask her before she left. "Sarah, do you trust me?"

Her eyes grew anguished. "I'm scared," she confessed in a whisper, suddenly unable to look at him.

He forced himself not to laugh. The indomitable secret agent was scared of him?

He slid a half-step closer to her. "There's no reason to be scared," he said in a deliberate parallel to a conversation they once had. "Just answer my question: do you trust me no matter what?"

She didn't react at first. She looked down at the floor, unable to look directly at him.

Then, time ground to a halt as she shook her head.

The smile slowly faded from Chuck's face. "Wha…?"

She shook her head again as if coming out of a daze. She straightened. "No, Chuck, I don't trust you."

Chuck was utterly crushed. Suddenly he was the one who couldn't look at the other. He forced himself through it, staring disbelievingly at her, trying to discern if she were lying.

She looked back at him with hopeless eyes. She was telling the truth.

This made no sense. Why did she seek him out? Some sense that she owed him closure? Some new assignment?

After discovering her secret messages to him, he spent a number of nights re-analyzing what she was asking for when she asked if he trusted her. He still believed that she was reassuring him that in the end he could trust her to keep her safe, as well as asking him if he trusted her enough to understand how things had to be.

But he had believed that, after he said yes, their night together had been a promise: a promise that she would return to him when she could. But now…

He couldn't stand it any more. It was the same roller coaster all over again. Maybe her years as an agent made it impossible for her to love another. Whatever the reason, he really didn't care: it was wrong. After keeping hope alive for three long years, it was just wrong. And her guilty expression told him that she knew that.

That just made it all the worse.

He looked at the clock; the hands on the clock read 3:40. Humorlessly, he said, "Well, my office hours are over. If you'll excuse me." He picked up his computer bag and, with a vacant stare, he headed for the door, deliberately walking around her. She didn't move as he passed.

It took forever for Chuck to cover the four paces past her to the door. He needed to get out of there.

From behind him, her voice came. "Chuck, I love you."

He stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway. He slowly turned around; she faced him, her posture pleading and frightened. "I love you," she repeated a bit more quietly, a desperate look on her face.

_What the hell?_ "God, I don't get it, Sarah. You…"

"Chuck, you once told me that you trusted me no matter what. That you would always trust me. I won't violate that trust by telling you that I trust you. That would be a lie."

"I don't trust you. I never have. I've been an undercover agent for the past twelve years. There isn't a single person in the world that I trust right now. Not Director Graham, not my mother, and not you."

She never took her eyes off of him. "But I really want to learn how to trust you. If you can be patient. If you'll let me."

He dropped his bag to the floor. It took him far less time to cover the four paces back to her. Suddenly, she was in his arms, and he was complete.

She buried her face into his chest, her elbows near his waist and her hands searching for purchase on his upper back, pulling herself closer to him.

He turned his face so he could inhale the scent of her hair, his arms surrounding her upper back and holding her tight.

They stayed that way for a long, long time. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip on her, but only so she could pull back far enough that he could look into her eyes. Those beautiful, intense, emotional eyes.

Even in this moment, Chuck couldn't help himself. "So, when do I get to meet your mom?"

She laughed, and a fair bit of the tension in the room was suddenly gone. "I could never slip anything real past you." Her look turned more serious. "But I would argue that we've got more important things to attend to first."

As she put a hand in his hair and guided his lips to hers, he found it difficult to disagree with her.

* * *

Chuck's alarm clock squawked at him. He groaned as he semiconsciously reached over and smacked the snooze button.

It was Sunday. Why the hell did he leave his alarm on?

He rolled onto his back, gently forcing his eyes open. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Was there something he had forgotten about today? Something tickled the back of his brain. Something important.

Memories of last night came flooding back. His eyes widened for a brief moment before he snapped them shut.

He had no idea whether she would be lying next to him.

Her messages told him that she always intended to come back to him in the end, whenever she could. What he didn't know was whether that time was now, or whether last night was just a brief respite in their separation.

He hadn't really had a chance to ask; there hadn't been much in the way of talking. Last night he hadn't been one to complain; he was just content to drink her in and have her close.

Still, now he regretted not asking the question.

He shook himself. He was being silly. She wouldn't have come back and talked of learning to trust him if she just needed to turn around and leave. Would she?

It was his turn to be scared.

He took a deep breath to try to gather his courage. All he had to do was open his eyes, and he would see her peacefully slumbering next to her.

Rolling onto his side, he faced her side of the bed. He counted in his head, _1 … 2 … 3._ He opened his eyes.

He reached out with a disbelieving hand. Her side of the bed was cold and empty.

_Oh, no. _His heart sank. He really had expected to see her lying there.

Gentle footfalls entered the room behind him; he quickly turned. Sarah was walking in, wearing only one of his T-shirts and carrying a glass of orange juice in her hand.

"Sorry," she said, registering his expression and what he must have been thinking. "Jet lag."

A slightly sheepish grin crossed his face; her face told him that she understood.

He scooted over slightly to make room for her. She set her glass on his nightstand, sliding under the sheets next to him. She gratefully pressed her back to his chest, nestling in close and pulling his arm around her waist. He savored the feeling of her warmth against him.

As he sleepily put his nose close to her neck, breathing in her scent and placing a gentle kiss that caused her to arch her head slightly, she quietly offered, "Don't worry; I'm not going anywhere."

She intertwined the fingers of one of her hands with the hand that pinned her body to his.

"Trust me."

* * *

_Ed. Note - There was a lot I could have done with this one ... heck, there was a lot I wanted to do. But I liked the feel of the story this way; I think the pacing was really good, and dragging things out any longer would have just been superfluous. This told the story I wanted to tell: Sarah and Chuck found a way to make things work while being true to themselves.  
_

_I consider the story pretty much done, although I may get tempted to write an epilogue or two one day.  
_

_At some point, I'll probably also do a similar version where Casey and Sarah get called away to new assignments, leaving Chuck to sink or swim without his sidekicks. That would probably be a series of stories._

_Right now, I want to get back and finish "Chuck vs the Strange Bedfellows" and continue that series. There's still a long way to go there._

_Hope you enjoyed the story.  
_


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